Home From Home

I was 18, and away from home for the first time. I was going to attend a university on the south coast of England, and I arrived at the local train station full of nervous apprehension. I wasn't the most outgoing of people, and always felt uncomfortable around people I didn't know very well. This was one of the reasons I had chosen to become a lodger with a local family rather than stay in a dormitory, or rent a house or flat with a bunch of people I didn't know. Lodging would also work out cheaper as well, having been advertised as full board. Also the company seemed to be quite nice. The woman renting the room was in her forties, and recently divorced, which is why she needed the money from renting out a room. I had been in regular e-mail and phone contact with her, and this had served to get to know each other better, as Lauren had said when I first contacted her, she didn't want to rent to someone she didn't trust, and I wouldn't want to stay with people I wasn't comfortable.

She had two daughters. I'd never spoken to them, but Lauren always made a point of talking about them in her messages. It sounded very much like they were her whole world, and almost everything she did revolved around them in some way. The elder was nearly twenty, and studying art at the same university as I would be going to. The younger was seventeen, and still in sixth form college, and well on her way to graduating with flying colours. I had seen photos, and neither was what could be called unattractive, the younger, Alison, usually had an expression that spoke of being shy about being photographed, a feeling I was very familiar with. The other girl was called Sarah, and seemed to look down on the camera as if she had better things to do than pose for photographs. She had the air of those girls in high school who all the boys fancy, and knows it. I thought of her as I got off the train, and hoped that her mother's glowing references were more reliable than my impressions from a few pictures.

Clumsily I made my way off the station, eventually finding a guard to show me where the exit was. As I passed that group of people you get at all train stations, all craning their necks, all slack-jawed staring at the list of arrivals and departures, I spotted a card being waved. It was A3 and in black marker bore my name. I smiled to myself and headed towards it, bumping a couple of people with my bags.

' Ms. Fielding I presume,' I said smiling down at her medium frame.

'I've told you before Alex, call me Lauren. I thought you'd prefer a lift from the station rather than finding your own way out. We live some way from the centre of town.'

'I'd have been happy to get a taxi, you didn't need to do this.'

'It's my pleasure, I'm not working today, and you need to watch your cash. I know how expensive taxis are, and I also know how hard it is for a student to hang on to cash these days.'

'Well thank you very much. I have quite a lot of luggage, I hope you have room for it all.'

'We'll manage. Here, let me take some of that.'

'No no, its fine, I can manage.'

Curse my gentlemanly conduct. I was struggling to be honest, with two large suitcases, a shoulder bag with a laptop and plenty of other electrical equipment in it, and a guitar on my back.

'I didn't know you played guitar, you didn't mention it in your e-mails.'

Well, I only started about a year ago. I wasn't going to bring it, but I've just started to get the hang of it, and I kind of want to carry on with it. I hope you don't mind.'

'Hey, it might be nice to have some music about the place. The stuff that the girls play at full volume out of their room can barely be called music. What kind of stuff do you like?'

'I go through phases, one week I'll be listening to modern punk, the next I'll be into good old fashioned rock 'n' roll.'

'And at the moment?'

'I've been listening to eighties rock on the train. Bryan Adams, Bon Jovi, that kind of stuff.'

'Then you'll be fine with me. That's the stuff I grew up listening to.'

We smiled at each other. By this point we had reached Lauren's Mondeo. She opened the boot, and I put my bags in, and then the guitar on the back seat. The conversation continued all the way home. As first impressions go, this is probably the best I'd ever had. I had no idea it was going to get better.

The house I had seen in pictures of course, but I hadn't seen the view. It was a three bedroom old fashioned place on a narrow one way street. There wasn't much of a front garden, and no room for parking, so we had to park two streets away and walk the rest of the way. If the street itself wasn't the very definition of picturesque, then the view from my bedroom window was. There was a small meadow which ended at a cliff and then the sea. The city sprawled almost lazily out to the port to the west with the tall, modern buildings framing the smaller old fashioned houses nearer to us on the coast. The fact that this was an early September afternoon with the late summer sunshine beating down from a cloudless sky probably made the impression as fantastic as it was. I could not believe how lucky I was to have landed on my feet like this.

'I'll let you unpack and get comfortable. I'll be downstairs if you need me. We'll order out for dinner tonight. I won't inflict my cooking on you your first night here!'

'Sounds good. Thank you again for this. I can't believe how nice this place is.'

'Hey, you're paying me remember, I should be thanking you. I got some downright suspicious characters apply before you came along. I hope you enjoy our company.'

With that she was gone, closing the door behind her. I looked out of the window again, sighed, and set to work unpacking.

At dinner I met Lauren's daughters. The impressions I got from the photos had been somewhat misleading. Alison was eager to learn about me, and eager to tell me about herself, even if I didn't want to know. Sarah was very quiet, but more through not having anything to say rather than being shy or aloof. I made a mental note to try and get to know her a little better in a one on one setting than with her family around. There's always a point of common ground two people can agree on, and often that's enough to base a friendship on. At the very least I didn't want to spend a year in a house with someone who didn't like me. Anyway, it turned out the girls had to share a bedroom because of my arrival, which may have caused the rather icy reception I got from her, responding to my, admittedly few, questions almost monosyllabically.

I had arrived a week before my induction at university, and as such had a lot of time on my hands to get to know the place. Lauren and Sarah both had part-time jobs, and so were in and out of the house a lot, and my first night dinner was a rare occurrence in that all four of us were in the same place at the same time.

Anyway, one evening in this week I had my first, let's say, 'encounter'. Lauren was doing the evening shift at the cafe where she worked, and Alison was out with friends, at the cinema, I think. I had spent some time strumming at my guitar when Sarah knocked on the door. This was the first time she'd made any attempt to be near me, let alone talk to me.

'I didn't know you played guitar,' she stated looking at it rather than me, 'what was that you were playing? I didn't recognise it.'

'Just something I'm writing myself. I can't seem to think of any words to write. Self-expression isn't my strong suit. I can't sing either which doesn't help. Do you play anything?' I hoped this could be our common point we could start a friendship over.

'No. I tried to learn piano in high school, but my fingers wouldn't do what I wanted them to.'

'Well, the right hand just strums. You don't have to think about it all the time, and you can concentrate on the left hand.'

'Cool.'

We were silent for a little while, then she broke it and said, 'look, there's some beer in the fridge, d'you want some?'

'Sure.'

She came back a minute later and handed me a can.

'I'm sorry if I've been distant with you,' I said. 'I'm not great around new people.'

'Neither am I. That's what the beer's for.'

I laughed. 'Everyone's been very welcoming to me, I really appreciate it.'

'I tried to get mum to get a girl to stay with us, I wasn't sure a guy in the house would be the best thing for our family right now. The divorce was messy, but mum reckons that having a guy around will prove useful.'

'I'd figured as much. I hope she's not expecting me to put up shelves or anything, I've never done it before.'

'No, I'm serious, we can learn about each other, without fear that the other is lying to us. And we can't ask the other person a question we wouldn't be prepared to answer ourselves.'

'And the dare part?'

'That adds the fun.'

I didn't want to ruin this chance to get to know her, and reluctantly agreed. It began fairly tamely, we found out about each others schooling, likes, dislikes, basic stuff. Then out of the blue, she asked, 'How many girls have you had sex with?'

'Excuse me?'

'How many girls have you had sex with? I haven't had sex with any, before you ask.'

'OK, one.'

'Just one?'

'Hey, you've had you're question, its my turn.' I tried to think quickly. I hadn't been prepared for that. I needed a question to put her on the back foot, and try and discourage this line of questioning.

She blushed a deep red. It set off her blonde hair quite nicely I thought.

'Once a week. OK this means war. What do you think about when you masturbate?'

'You first.'

'It differs. Often it involves a cute guy and maybe a beach somewhere, or a clearing in the woods, and he makes love to me.'

Damn. I hoped she wouldn't answer that. Some of the things guys think about when they masturbate don't deserve to be repeated. I didn't want to risk ruining the time I'd spent with her. I couldn't bring myself to answer.

'I'm not gonna answer that.'

'Then you have to take a dare.'

'Bring it on.'

'Take you're clothes off.'

'Excuse me?'

'All of them. Take your clothes off. And before you think it you can't go back and answer the question.'

'And if I don't?'

'I'm sure I can think of something to make your life a living hell. But neither of us would want that, we're getting along so well.' She smiled cheekily. I know she was joking, we both knew I was going to do it, partially because of the drink, but mostly because I wanted to see where this was going.

I followed her instructions slowly, watching her expression closely. I wondered how she would have reacted if I'd told her this was one of the things I thought about while I jerked myself off.

My jeans hit the floor, and I stepped out of them. 'Stop.' She commanded. I paused with my thumbs in the waistband of my boxers. 'Turn around.' Her voice was far off, almost caught in her throat. 'I want to see your arse first. Then your cock.'

I was shocked at her choice of words. I guess I'd thought she was more innocent than she actually was. I thought about arguing, but then thought better of it. This could still turn sour. I turned around, took a deep breath, and dropped my shorts.

'Mmm, nice,' she whispered, and i felt the soft touch of her hand on my backside.

I slowly began to turn, painfully aware of the erection I was sporting. In my fantasies I had always managed to keep composure at this point, but I just couldn't control myself. I dare any guy to try in this situation.

She gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. She began to move closer to me. I was about to say, 'keep your hands to yourself' when the front door opened.

'I'm home!' It was Lauren.

Sarah bolted out of the room, leaving me naked as the day I was born. I was about to retrieve my clothes when she poked her head back around the door and said, 'Maybe we'll finish this game some other time.' She winked at me, took another long look at my crotch and left.